I've been listening to "Blackshirts and Reds" on recommendation, but Parenti's view on China seems far more critical than I expected. What is the general opinion on China's post 1978 reforms? (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I feel like I don't hear much internal critique about China from the ML side of things - is this more of a 'critical support' posture or are people just generally more optimistic about long-term socialization of their market?

edit: if there are more reading materials that discuss this topic in-depth, I am very interested in recommendations

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[-] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago

I was trying to find some western coverage of China from the 90s but didn’t have much luck.

I did find this from 2023 which lays out the current coverage pretty well

https://thediplomat.com/2023/02/anti-china-rhetoric-is-off-the-charts-in-western-media/

[-] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

There was a very favorable documentary by Ted Koppel in 2008 called The People’s Republic of Capitalism that basically made the argument that this wasn’t your dad’s China anymore: open economy and society, secret prisons replaced with a couple days in the drunk tank for noisy political dissidents, emergent middle class similar in outlook and interests to middle income Americans. This was about 4-5 years before Xi so it tracks.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I don't know of any analysis about it, maybe fair.org has something, but from what I remember there was a shift towards relentless negative coverage shortly after Xi came to power. Especially when the belt and road initiative started.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Obama's "Pivot to Asia" was around 2012, so this tracks

[-] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

xi-peel

this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025

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